Hu Jintao, general-secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and president of China, succeeded Jiang Zemin as chairman of the CPC Central Military Commission yesterday.

The appointment was made at the Fourth Plenum of the 16th CPC Central Committee which ended yesterday in Beijing.

A native of Jixi County, Anhui Province, Hu was born in December 1942.

In 1959, he enrolled in Tsinghua University and graduated from the Hydraulic Engineering Department in 1965. Hu began to work at the grassroots in Northwest China's Gansu Province in 1968 and stayed there until 1982 when he became a member of the Secretariat of the Communist Youth League of China Central Committee and president of the All-China Youth Federation. Beginning in 1985, he was appointed, successively, secretary of the CPC Guizhou Provincial Committee and of the CPC Tibet Autonomous Regional Committee.

In 1992, the 49-year-old Hu was elected member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee at the First Plenum of the 14th CPC Central Committee, which was then widely considered an important step by the CPC toward generational transition of the central leadership.

From 1993 to the end of 2002, Hu was concurrently president of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, which has been the training base for senior CPC officials and the backbone of theoretical studies over the past 70 years.

In September 1997, Hu was re-elected to the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee at the First Plenum of the 15th CPC Central Committee.

Hu became vice-president of China in March 1998 and vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission in September 1999.

In November 2002, Hu was elected general-secretary of the CPC Central Committee at the 16th National Congress of the CPC. In March 2003, Hu was elected president of China at the First Session of the 10th National People's Congress, the top legislature of the country.

Also yesterday, Xu Caihou was named vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission.

Xu, previously a member of the CPC Central Military Commission, was born in Wafangdian, Liaoning Province, Northeast China, in June 1943. He joined the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in August 1963 and was trained from 1963 to 1968 at the Electronics Engineering Department of the Harbin Institute of Military Engineering. He joined the Party in April 1971.

He was secretary and deputy head of the Personnel Division of the Political Department of the Jilin Military Area Command between 1972 and 1982.

Xu was appointed director of the Mass Work Section of the Political Department of the Shenyang Military Area Command from 1984 to 1985, and political commissar of the 16th Group Army of the Ground Force between 1990 and 1992.

He served as deputy director of the PLA General Political Department during 1993 and 1996.

He was made member of the CPC Central Military Commission and executive deputy director of the PLA General Political Department between 1999 and 2002.

Xu is now also member of the 16th CPC Central Committee and of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee.

(China Daily 09/20/2004 page2)